From this week's fishwrap, you can read Chris Faraone's report from ROFLCon 2010, which may be the closest thing IRL to synthesizing the sublime irreverence, shocking duplicity, crass exploitation, and utter brilliance of the internet. The smartest hour of ROFLCon came courtesy of the Berkman Center's ETHAN ZUCKERMAN, who argues that the future of the internet is pluralistic and global -- that developing countries are beginning to catch up to us in meme production, and that the internet, heralded as a tool to make the world smaller, is now splintering into a multiplicity of distinct internets.

Plenty of authoritative geeks have weighed in on Christmas and its patron saint of gift-giving: According to Neil Gaiman, Santa Claus is a tortured soul who cannot die, a slave to the "dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns."

I once saw a bumper sticker that read “Rape a Gay Whale for Jesus.” Assuming that the driver was not a homophobic bible boy who likes to diddle blowholes, it was possibly the most brilliant protest ever forced upon my eyeballs. I wish I had a massive oak tag shouting that catch phrase with me earlier this afternoon.